


Best of Wives and Best of Women

by caulk_ur_wagon



Series: A Loop Collapsed [2]
Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, Nightmare Time - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Are all the titles of this series gonna be a hamilton reference, But she's trying, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Jane wasn't a great person, Mentions of alcohol, Tom Houston Needs a Hug, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, he does not get a hug, probably not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:02:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27361684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caulk_ur_wagon/pseuds/caulk_ur_wagon
Summary: The loop has fallen. Jane explains some shit.
Relationships: Becky Barnes/Tom Houston, Past Tom Houston/Jane Perkins, Tim Houston & Tom Houston
Series: A Loop Collapsed [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998433
Kudos: 6





	Best of Wives and Best of Women

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for your comments on the last story. It's the first thing I've ever posted on this site and the first thing I've written in nearly five years, so I was really nervous about posting it, and seeing you all enjoying it made me so happy and much more confident in my writing. I love you all.
> 
> This is a lot shorter than the last one and a lot more dialogue heavy.

The place Tom awoke in was grey and vast. He couldn’t describe the atmosphere of the place. Everything felt like nothing. It was uncomfortable at least. He looked down. The ground was covered in some kind of mist that came up over the tops of his shoes. He still wore the jeans and flannel he dressed in that morning. What had he done that morning?

He went to the high school, hadn’t he? Why did he go there? He wracked his brain, trying to come up with an explanation. He had a son, right? Was he taking his son to school? No, Tim was only ten, he wasn’t old enough to go to high school yet. Was he going to work? Did he work there?

No, no he _used_ to work there. That’s why he was there, he was trying to get his old job back. He’d taken an extended leave when his wife passed to mourn and ended up quitting when he needed more time than his bosses could afford to give. But it had been over a year, he had finally begun to heal, and his savings were dwindling. They never filled his old position, choosing instead to cut the program entirely, but he hoped to convince them to bring him back.

Right, so that was why he was at the school. But how he got from the school to whatever the hell this place is was another question. He remembered a flash, a bang, and… did the building fall? He became aware of a pain in his leg, a sort of distant throbbing that he could have completely ignored had he not thought about it. Had he gotten hurt? 

“Hello, Tom.” The warm, honeyed voice broke through his reverie. He whirled around, heart in his throat, recognizing the voice.

“Jane?”

Tears pricked his eyes as he took her in. She wore her favorite knee-length skirt. It was brown, adorned with pink flowers. He never understood how she could wear a skirt in the bitter Michigan winter. Her blouse was white, with frills at the neck. Over it was a soft brown blazer he’d gotten her once for her birthday. It was the same outfit she died in.

“How… How are you here? Where-am I dead?”

She chuckled warmly, “No, no you’ve got a while yet.” She looked around absently, “As for where we are, it’s an in-between place, like a dimension between dimensions. It exists outside of time and space. The beings within call it something, a word in their own tongue I couldn’t even begin to pronounce. The people who can travel here call it the Black and White. This specific place, where we’re standing now, is somewhere in-between the Black and the White.”

“I missed you,” Tom whispered, reverently. He wanted to reach for her but found himself rooted to the spot. “Tim misses you.”

Jane seemed to be fighting her own tears, “I miss you too. God, I miss you both so much! I’ve kept an eye on you two, as much as I can,” She shook her head, a faraway look in her eyes, “He’s grown so much.”

“He reminds me of you more and more every day.”

“Really? I always thought he looked like your clone.”

Tom nodded, “In his face maybe, but he’s smart, Jane, smart like you,” the man chuckled, “Witty, too, but I think he gets that from hanging around Emma.”

“How is she?”

“Worse than you described when she first showed up, but she’s getting better, I think. Starting to grow on me, and Tim likes her.”

Jane glided closer. “Tom, what do you remember? About what happened before you got here.”

That was a difficult question to answer. More memories appeared, flickers and flashes of images that didn’t make sense. “It’s all kinda jumbled. I feel like I remember a lot but the pieces don’t really fit together.”

His wife nodded, a sympathetic and almost pitying look in her grey eyes. “You’ll remember more when you wake.”

Tom shook his head. The memories were coming faster now, hitting him almost painfully. “I died,” he said, “I remember dying, a lot.” He gripped his skull.

“You did die.”

“But, you said-”

“You didn’t die _this time_.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He felt dizzy. He remembered blue slime, bombs, wrecking the car again.

“I’ll try to explain, but you need to understand, love, there are… There were things about me, about my life and my work that you didn’t know.” Jane ran a hand through her soft brown waves. “Do you remember my work? What I said about it?”

Tom squinted. “You _didn’t_ talk about it. You worked for the government, you said you couldn’t talk about it.”

“Well, I can now. What’re they gonna do, fire me?” she said dryly, then continued, “I worked for an agency, one that the rest of our government, even the President, doesn’t know about. Paranormal, Extraterrestrial, Interdimensional Phenomena. We fight ghosts, monsters, aliens, anything that goes bump in the night.”

“You were men in black?”

Jane gave a disgusted look. “No, those guys are jackasses.”

Tom laughed, in spite of the pain he was in. He had missed this, missed her. Jane didn’t swear often, so when she did, it often struck him as humorous. Jane always reminded him of a grade school teacher, sunshine-y and welcoming. Told her she should be one if the whole government thing got boring, to which she’d reply that she’d leave the student-wrangling to him. Still, with the image she projected, it was hard to picture her swearing if you weren’t close enough to her to hear it.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I have a… A power, let’s say. A Gift,” She said it like it was capitalized, “It’s not nearly as rare as it sounds. Some people have a strong power, with others, it manifests in small ways that they barely if ever notice, and still others never manifest theirs at all and go their entire lives never knowing about it. Hell, those last two descriptions fit half of Hatchetfield.

“Anyway, mine appeared when I was in college, and I caused enough of a ‘blip’ on P.E.I.P.’s radar that they contacted me, offered me a job, and a way to hone my abilities. I’d been working with them for a little over five years when I met you. Well, met you _again_ , I should say.”

Tom knew what she meant. They had gone to the same high school. Though they never really ran in the same circles, he knew _of_ her, in the “she’s the friend of a friend of a friend” kind of way. They didn’t _meet_ -meet until 2006, after he got home from Iraq. 

“Hatchetfield lies on a spot where the barriers between dimensions are thin, and it’s very easy for beings from the Black and White to creep in. Not that they can’t come in via other gates in other times and places, but those gates rarely exist, and when they do, they’re hardly ever open. Hatchetfield is a unique place. No matter what time, no matter what dimension, no matter what variable, the gate is always here and it’s always open.

“So P.E.I.P. keeps someone stationed in Hatchetfield, someone with the Gift to protect Hatchetfield from any threat, and therefore protect the world. Usually, only minor entities, low-level threats, bother with the other gates, but if something got out in Hatchetfield, it would cause a cataclysmic event that has the potential to end the world as we know it.”

“And you were that person?”

“I was that person. I’d been that person for a year when I met you. My predecessor… I’m not entirely sure what happened to him. My superiors told me it was above my pay grade, so I didn’t ask further questions. Anyway, he was gone, and normally that would be a major problem, but I had almost completed my training anyway, so I took over his position. When I died,” she paused and Tom winced, “When I died, they had no one to replace me.

“My specific power is rare. I could fight these beings if necessary, I could hold the gate closed so it wouldn’t be necessary, and I could manipulate time, to a certain extent. After the crash, that’s what I did.”

Tom rubbed his temple, trying to comprehend what his wife (his wife’s… Ghost?) was telling him. “A time what?”

“A time loop. I had to find someone with a power like mine, someone to take my place. But there was a risk: if the gate was left unprotected for too long, a world-ending threat could seep out and destroy our universe before I could complete my search. So I used what power I had left and put the world in a time loop. Each loop differed in many ways, but there were constants: it always ended when whatever threat the world was dealing with passed the point of no return, and reset to the moment I died.”

“So why are you telling me this now? Why not visit me sooner?” He felt bitter. How many times had this loop reset? How long had Jane been around, just to never speak to him? To speak to their son?

“You wouldn’t have remembered if I did.”

“So why now, huh? What’s so different about now?”

“Because it’s over. The loop is broken.”

Tom was stunned. Over? What did that mean? Jane seemed to notice his confusion.  
  
“I found a girl with powers like mine, with powers _stronger_ than mine. Her name is Hannah Foster-”

“I know her!” Tom interrupted, “I taught her sister, Lex. I think I might’ve met Hannah, too.”

Jane smiled, “You did. In many of the loops, you and the Foster girls crossed paths.”

“Huh. So, Hannah’s got magic?”

“Hannah is a very powerful little girl. More powerful than I think even she knows. Lex has the Gift too, but to a lesser extent. She doesn’t find out about it every time, but Hannah… I’ve never seen anything like her. She’s the reason the loop collapsed. I was able to make contact with her this time and guide her where she needed to be. See, a gate can open anywhere and where the other dimensions leaked through was different in every loop. This time, it was at the high school, and it was big. And Hannah closed it, all by herself! I’ve never seen such power from someone so young! She’s going to do great things, I can guarantee that.”

It was a lot to take in, and Tom still felt like he didn’t fully understand. “So these other memories I’m getting…”

“Are from other loops.”

“So which one is the real one?”

Jane paused, like she was pondering this. “Every loop is _real_ in the sense that they really happened. They will all have some form of effect on your life moving forward because you will remember everything that has happened to you in each loop. But I guess this loop is the ‘real’ one since it’s the one that won’t be reset.” 

“You said some loops were different than others, how could that be?”

“It’s simple really. Each time the loop reset, it started again at the same moment with the same set of circumstances.”

“Right,” Tom interrupted, “But shouldn’t that mean that each loop would be the same?”

“In theory, yes, but in reality, humans have free will and will often make different decisions in the same situations across multiple realities. Especially when you figure in outside influences from threats within the Black and White. The Black and White itself is different from our reality and therefore doesn’t obey our rules. So while each loop began in the same place, subtle differences came from the Black and White, and each loop ended with vastly different outcomes. There were some constants, though; I don’t think there was a single loop where my sister didn’t end up with that geeky guy.”

Tom groaned. “You don’t like him?” Jane asked.

“He’s nice enough and Tim likes him, but he’s gangly and awkward and ends up saying stuff around Tim he shouldn’t.”

Jane’s eye sparkled with mirth. “Ah yes, the ‘intimate’ comments.”

“See! Tim’s not old enough for that kinda stuff.”

Tom paused as his wife rested a ghostly hand on her hip. “You’re one to talk, mister,” her voice deepened into a poor imitation of her husband’s, “ _‘Aw, Janey, it’s not gonna hurt to swear around him, he’s too young to understand!’_ What was our son’s first word, dear?”

He had the decency, at least, to look sheepish. “Shit.”

Jane nodded slowly. “It was _‘shit.’_ ”

The two were quiet for a moment, until Jane let out a snort and they dissolved into soft laughter. 

“There were a few minor consistencies,” Jane continued once she’d regained her composure, “Situations that happened in each loop, but had slight variations in how they played out.”

“Like what?”

“Well, take Becky Barnes. In every loop she wanted to come to my funeral, and every time, her husband refused. In some loops, she fought back and ended up killing him. In others, she did nothing. In others still, she fought back and she herself was killed. This time, she succeeded in killing her husband, but she hasn’t told you, right?”

Tom thought back. Distantly, he seemed to remember her telling him many times that Stanley was dead. Sometimes she admitted to killing him, sometimes she didn’t. “No, I don’t think she did this time.”

“And no matter the outcome of how that situation went down, it wasn’t guaranteed that you two would cross paths.”  
  
Tom rubbed the back of his neck. “Listen, Janey, about that-”

“I’m not mad, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“You’re not?”

“Our vows were _‘til death do us part.’_ There’s nothing wrong with moving on, Tom,” Jane smiled, “Besides, I like Becky. She’s good to Tim, and he likes her. I think she’ll be good for you both.”

“Really?”

“She’ll be there when you wake up. She was working when the loop collapsed, and she took care of Tim when he was brought in.”

Tom’s heart stopped. God, he didn’t even think about Tim being hurt. “Is he-?”

“Perfectly fine. The first of any of the kids to wake. Our boy is strong, Tom, it’ll take more than that to knock him down.”

He relaxed at that, eyes slipping shut in relief. “Good. If I had lost him, too, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“I know what you mean. There were loops where… Where he was hurt, or worse, and I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t interfere. God, those were the hardest to watch.” Tears sparkled in the woman’s eyes. “I was always so relieved when those loops reset, even when that meant watching the world go through even more torture.”

She choked back a sob, “I wish I had been a better mother to him.”

Tom reached out a hand, still unable to move forward, but his wife was just out of reach. “You said it yourself, you couldn’t interfere.”

“In _life_ , Tom,” she corrected, “I could’ve been better in life.”

The man balked. “What’re ya talkin’ about? You were a great mother!”

“Don’t lie Tom.”

“I’m not!”

“A great mother wouldn’t get as drunk as I did.”

Tom found himself struggling to disagree. “Well… You had the fate of the world on your shoulders, that’s a lot of pressure, you were stressed!”

“That’s an explanation, not an excuse,” Jane insisted, “It wasn’t fair to Tim, he didn’t need to see me like that. And it certainly wasn’t fair to you. I’d get you drunk too so you’d talk about things you weren’t ready to. That was horrible and manipulative of me, and Tom, I’m so, so sorry.”

There wasn’t a lie to be found. When Jane was drunk, she was sloppy. At times, it was like she didn’t know her limit, or just didn’t care. There were plenty of times that Tom had to send Tim to bed early because Jane opened a bottle of wine at six and was nearly blacked out by seven-thirty. Other times, before she started binge-drinking for the night, while she was tipsy, she’d bug him into drinking and try to wheedle the war out of him, and get frustrated and pick a fight if he wouldn’t.

“Jane, it’s okay-”  
  
“No, it’s not. It was cruel, and you know that. God, you…” she paused, sniffling, “Do you remember the loop where you fixed the mustang? There’s a creature in the Black and White, it drives people to violence for its own amusement by amplifying your own worst traits and blinding you to anything but your worst thoughts and opinions of those around you. It made you think I was possessing the car, and that version of me, God, I-”

“Jane, I don’t really think that, you were never that bad-” Tom remembered that loop. He was relieved to know that wasn’t really Jane. Even then, it didn’t feel like her. No matter how bad Jane got, she would never have encouraged him to hurt anyone. But seeing her again, thinking he had a chance at having her back in some tangible way, he’d have done anything, said anything, to appease her and keep her with him. Just as he was doing now.

“But I hurt you. I hurt you and I hurt our son that loop was the wake-up call to just how bad I had gotten, even if it wasn’t to that extent. That creature doesn’t make thing up, it can’t, all it can do is amplify the pain that is already there. And the worst part? The worst part was I never figured it out in life when I could’ve done something to get better and fix it. How could any part of that be okay?”

“It’s not okay,” Tom admitted after a silence, “But I forgive you. And I know Tim will too.”

“Tell him that I love him. Tell him that I’m sorry.”

“But Jane, you can tell him yourself.”

“No, Tom,” Jane whispered wetly, “I can’t.”

Tom scoffed. “JAne we just fought ghosts, you could just,” he waved his hands in emphasis, “ _Poof_ in there and talk to him. God, he’ll be so happy to see you again.”

“ _Tom_ ,” she said, “The loop is broken. I’m not tied to this world anymore. I have to go.”

 _‘No,’_ Tom thought, and out loud, “You can’t.”

“I don’t have a choice. You’ll wake up soon and I’m already fading.”

“But he needs you,” he could feel the tears on his face, “I need you.”

Jane walked forward, slowly closing the distance between them. “You’re both strong. You’ll face hardship, but you’re strong and you’ll get through it.” Finally, she stood just before him. Tentatively, she rested a hand against his cheek. “You will be okay.”

“I love you,” he breathed, holding his own hand to hers, keeping it in place. He had to say it, just one last time.

“I love you, too.”

And with that, like smoke in the wind, she dissipated and Jane was gone.

***

“Excuse me, mind if I sit here?”

Tom startled and tore his gaze away from the magazine he was trying and failing to distract himself with. He hated doctors and could think of about a million places he’d rather be than the VA hospital, but here he was anyway, the scent of disinfectant burning his nose, waiting in an impossibly long line to speak to some shrink at the recommendation of his primary physician. He wiped a sweaty palm on his shaking knee and nodded toward the seat next to him, about the only open one left in the room, watching the woman plop into the chair.

“Thank you. Wait a minute, I know you, don’t I?” She paused, searching his face.. “Oh my god, you’re Tom Houston, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“You probably don’t remember me, I’m Jane Perkins, we went to high school together.”

Tom searched his memory, trying to match the name and face to his high school years as he shook her outstretched hand. “Yeah, yeah, you used to hang around Goldstein a-and… Shit, what was her name?”

“Linda Prewett. Well, Linda _Monroe_ , now.”

“Gotcha.”  
  
“So, when’d you get back?”

“About a week ago,” Tom replied, then the reality of where they were struck him and he set the magazine down, “Wait, this is a veteran hospital, what’re you doin’ here?”

“I work for the government,” she answered.

“Oh yeah? Doin’ what?”

Jane’s face dropped and she almost glared at him. In a harsh whisper, she said, “If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.” She dropped the act and laughed at the man’s alarmed expression. “I’m just messing with you. But I really can’t tell you. Classified.”

Tom chuckled in response. He nodded in the direction of the front desk. “Can you at least tell me what you’re in for?”

“My boss wants me to start seeing a therapist. Job’s kinda stressful, and he thinks it’ll be good for me. You?”

“Same thing. Doc thinks bein’ out there messed with my head or something.”

She looked interested. “Did it?”

Tom shifted in his seat, wiping his palms on his knee again. “I’d, uh, I’d rather not talk about it.”

The woman looked for a second like she wanted to push, but thankfully she changed the subject. “Well, back for a week so far, huh? Had a chance to check out what’s changed yet?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Hatchetfield changed?”

“A little. How about I show you around sometime? There’s this bar that opened up downtown that I’m sure wasn’t around before you shipped out, I bet you’d like it.”

Truthfully, Tom really didn’t want to go out to a bar. Bars were crowded and loud and he was still kinda jumpy and would much rather spend the night on his recliner in his tiny apartment. But he could hear his doctor in his mind, pestering him to get out more. Plus, there was something compelling in the way she looked at him.

“Y’know what, Miss Perkins? I think I’d like that.”

***

Tom became aware of a soft, rhythmic beeping as he woke, blinking away the dream. It was night, and the room was dark, save for the glowing machinery next to his bed and the single floor lamp in the corner. His leg thrummed with a distant pain, and from the IV feeding into his hand, he assumed he had morphine to thank for that. The sound of breathing other than his drew his eyes to the wall opposite him.

His son lay fast asleep on a cot. The boy’s face was slack, and a faint smile played on his lips. His hair was tousled, like he’d been asleep for a while. The blanket was pulled up to his chin, making him look younger than he was. A hand carded idly through his curls. Tom’s eyes trailed up the arm, landing on Becky Barnes. 

She was curled up in an uncomfortable-looking chair next to the cot. She was still in her worm scrubs, but she had kicked her shoes off. Her face was creased with exhaustion and worry. Worry for Tim? Worry for him? His mind drifted, to high school and stolen kisses behind the bleachers, to promising to wait for each other when he enlisted, to the break-up letter he’d sent following the death of his best friend once he realized that he couldn’t put her through the same thing. All the pain and trauma of each loop, of each time she told him the horrible details of what her husband did to her. All the times they watched each other die.

He could still feel Jane’s fingers against his cheek. He remembered what she said, and he smiled. His voice was gravely and scratched when he spoke.

“Hey, Beck.”

“Tom?!”

**Author's Note:**

> This mainly serves as a transitional piece between I Swear That I'll Be Around and the next story that I have planned. The next one will be longer and more detailed, so it'll take a lot longer to write. See you next time!


End file.
